Same-sex marriage (SSM)

Legalization in Spain

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Overview:

Spain used to be a staunchly Roman Catholic country. The church had
maintained close
links with dictator General Francisco Franco until his death in 1975. Since
then, the country has rapidly become more secular. In early 2004, a socialist
party was voted into office. By late 2004, public opinion
polls showed that almost half of Spanish adults almost never go to mass.

A law to legalize same-sex marriage was passed by parliament in mid-2005. This made
Spain the fifth country in the world -- and the third in Europe -- where
same-sex couples can marry. The others are the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, and
the state of Massachusetts in the United States

Events, 2001 to now:

2001-SEP-26: The Spanish parliament rejected an opposition
bill that would have given gay and lesbian couples similar rights as
opposite-sex married couples. The ruling conservative Peoples' Party had
an absolute majority of seats in parliament. 1

2004-APR: A socialist party took
over control of Parliament after eight years of conservative rule. The new prime
minister, Josť Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has promised to
terminate the Roman
Catholic Church's "undeniable advantages." He planed to convert Spain into a secular
state with simplified divorce procedures, increased access to abortions, and
SSM. 2

2004-JUN-30: Justice Minister Juan
Fernando Lopez Aguilar said that the Parliament may approve SSMs early in 2005. On
2004-JUN-29, legislators approved a non-binding
resolution urging the Socialist government to make SSM legal. He said:

"It's
a challenge that this government wants to undertake, to remove a border
of inequality. It is a fair cause that doesn't offend anyone."

2004-OCT-01: The Spanish cabinet approved a
bill for submission to parliament which would legalize SSM. The bill called for all couples -- both opposite-sex and same-sex --
to have identical
rights, including the right to adopt children. The Spanish Bishops'
Conference issued a statement criticizing saying the decision as:

"... wrong
and unjust ... A married couple, producing and educating their children,
contributes in an irreplaceable way to the growth and stability of society....
[A same-sex couple] could never have such characteristics....Marriage is
essentially a heterosexual institution."

Same-sex couples do produce and educate their children, with the help of
artificial insemination or adoption. However, the Catholic Church considers
assisted reproduction to be immoral.

The bishops said that equal marriage
risks "introducing a virus into society."

Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega, a spokesperson for the Spanish cabinet, said
that thousands of children live with homosexual parents and numerous studies
had shown that they were no different than children brought up in heterosexual
homes. She said:

"There is no proof that homosexual parents educate their
children any worse. In adoption, the well-being of the children comes first,
independent of the sexual orientation of the parents."

Gwenael Le Moing, spokesperson for the Christian Association of Gays and
Lesbians, welcomed the decision by the cabinet. saying that the law would
help the normalize homosexuality in society:

"....although there was still a lot of work to do.
It also leaves the church more and more isolated in its discriminatory
position." 2

2005-APR-21: The Spanish Congress of Deputies, Spain's lower house, gave initial
approval to a bill legalizing same-sex marriage. It adds the following
sentence to the existing marriage law: "Marriage will have the
same requirements and results when the two people entering into the
contract are of the same sex or of different sexes." It easily passed by a
vote of 183 to 136. There were six abstentions. It then went to the Senate
for approval. 4

2005-MAY-02: Roman Catholic Cardinal
Alfonso Lopez Trujillo leads the Pontifical Council for the Family at the
Vatican. He said that the proposed law, along with the growth of
cohabitation before marriage, was "...destroying, bit by bit, the
institution of marriage." He described the adoption of children by same-sex
couples as "moral violence" committed against children. He said:

"People
say these children adopted by same-sex couples are very happy. Maybe, when
they are one or two years old. But when they are able to think for
themselves, when they grow up, what a tragedy when they have to say 'my
parents are two men, or two women.' Their personality, their stability is
put as risk." 5

2005-MAY-05: Spanish bishops condemned
what they called this unjust, corrupting law. They declared that the union of
two persons of the same sex cannot be considered marriage. They are distressed
about the damage to children adopted into families led by same-sex spouses. They
do not view the government's proposal as a valid law because they believe that
it contradicts their concepts of reason and morality. They urge the laity to object to this
unprecedented law, as being harmful to marriage, the family, young people, and
educators. 6

2005-MAY:Instituto Opina, a polling agency, found that 62% of Spanish
adults supported the
bill legalizing gay marriage. 30% were opposed; 8% were unsure or did not
respond. Surveys
also found that the public is about evenly split on whether same-sex couples
should be allowed to adopt children. 9

2005-JUN-18: Thousands of bishops,
priests, nuns, conservative political leaders, and the general public protested against
marriage equality. The demonstration was
organized by a lay Catholic group, the Spanish Forum for the Family.
Organizers estimated that 1.5 million attended; the media estimated 500,000.
Deputy Socialist Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega accused the
protesters of discrimination against homosexuals. She said that they wanted to
withhold the rights that they enjoyed from other people. She said that the new
law would : "...not oblige anyone to do anything they don't want to do." Earlier, Roman Catholic
Cardinal Trujillo has asked municipal office personnel to refuse to
perform same-sex marriages if they become legal. He said:

"They
should exercise the same conscientious objection asked of doctors and
nurses against a crime such as abortion. This is not a matter of choice:
all Christians... must be prepared to pay the highest price, including
the loss of a job."

One demonstrator, Agustin Cruz, 41,
said:

"Marriage can only be between man and a woman. It's a divine and
natural law. Marriage of homosexuals is a lie. You have to call things
by their name. The first lie begins when you start calling queers
'gays.' They're queers, it's not an insult, it's the definition of that
race of people."

Fr. Jose Ramon Velasco said:

"This demonstration is the people's
response to the government's provocations. We're not against homosexuals but
allowing them to marry degrades matrimony. And they shouldn't have the right to
adopt because if those children turn out to be homosexual, who will be to blame,
the government?"

He appears to be unaware that the vast majority of children of same-sex
parents grow up to be heterosexuals.

Comparing the bill to the early activities of the Nazis in
Germany during the early 1930s, he said:

"Back then the majority of people
also backed Hitler just like the majority back this law. I'm serious; give it
time and it will destroy the moral fiber of Spain and the West."

Public opinion polls continue to show that
most Spanish adults support the bill by a large margin. 7,8

2005-JUN-23: The Spanish Senate
rejected the bill to legalize SSM. Members
from the Catalan Christian Democrat Party and the center-right Popular Party opposed the bill. However, unlike most other
countries, the upper House's vote is not binding. The bill returned to
the lower house for final approval. 7

2005-JUN-30: The Congress of Deputies
voted 187 to 147, with four abstentions, to legalize SSM. The key phrase in
the new law sates: "Matrimony shall have the same requirements and effects regardless of
whether the persons involved are of the same or different sex." The law
will come into effect as soon as it is published in government registry;
this was expected sometime in the first half of July. The Popular Party
may challenge the constitutionality of the law in the courts.

Reactions were mixed:

Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said
that the new law makes "...an immense change in the lives of
thousands of citizens. We are not legislating, ladies and gentlemen, for
remote, unknown people. We are expanding opportunities for the happiness
of our neighbors, our work colleagues, our friends, our relatives."

Mariano Rajoy, leader of the Popular Party said: "I think the prime minister has committed a grave act of
irresponsibility."

Several members from the opposition Popular Party
shouted: "This is a disgrace."

Beatriz Gimeno, a activist promoting equal rights
for gays and lesbians said: "It is a historic day for the world's
homosexuals. We have been fighting for many years. Now comes the hardest
part, which is changing society's mentality."

Pedro Almodovar, a gay film director commented: "I don't like marriage. I am not going to get married. But
it is important for this to be called marriage so people know that it is
the same thing for everyone."

The Spanish Bishops Conference, a Roman Catholic body, stated: "Marriage,
understood as the union of a man and a woman, is no longer provided for in
our laws. It is necessary to oppose these unfair laws through all legitimate
means." [Note: If properly translated form the original Spanish, this
statement appears to be in error, because opposite-sex couples can still be
married just as they have in the past.]

2005-JUN-30: The Spanish Catholic Bishops Conference issued a
statement deploring the SSM legislation and calling for Spaniards to oppose
the law." They wrote:

"Today the words 'husband' and 'wife' have been systematically
eliminated from the Code, in such a way that marriage, insofar as union
of a man and a woman, is no longer contemplated by our laws."

The bishops also expressed sorrow at a companion
bill to implement no-fault divorce. The bishops wrote that the institution
of marriage has lost:

"... its own note of legal stability [and is] reduced to a
shallow contract that either of the parties may rescind in virtue of his or
her mere will, three months after stipulating it. In this way, the Spanish
laws that regulate marriage have become radically unjust....They do not
recognize the anthropological and social reality of the union of a man and a
woman in its specificity and in its irreplaceable value for the common good,
concretely, for the personal fulfillment of the spouses and for the
procreation and education of the children. Our laws have ceased, therefore,
to adequately protect the rights of parents, of children and of educators.
Moreover, by leaving in practice the continuity of the conjugal pact to the
discretion of individual liberty, they also leave the marriage bond
unprotected and open the legal path to the violation of the rights of the
other spouse and of the children. It is necessary to oppose these unjust
laws through all the legitimate means that the state of law places at the
disposition of the citizens." 11

2005-JUL-06: The Supreme Court of Justice of Catalonia
blocked the marriage of two gay men: one Spanish and the other from India.
The judge's rationale was that India bans same-sex marriages, and there is
an article in the civil code that foreign residents of Spain are bound by
the laws of their home countries. This would seem to limit Spanish
homosexuals to same-sex partners who are residents of Spain, Holland
and Belgium. This list includes Canada, as of JUL-20. 10

This makes Spain the third country to pass a
bill legalizing SSM within its borders. The Netherlands were first; Belgium
was second. The Canadian House of Commons approved a bill to legalize
SSM on 2005-JUN-28 -- one day before the Spanish bill was passed. It was
signed into law on JUL-20.

References used:

The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above
essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.

"Objections of conscience to a radically unjust law that corrupts the
institution of marriage," Executive Committee of the Spanish Episcopal
conference, 2005-MAY-05. Written in Spanish, at"
http://www.conferenciaepiscopal.es/